Journals and Posts

He was born in Oklahoma in 1920. He died in Houston, Texas 2000. The name 'James B. Morris' was very common just before WW2.

This is what I know about him.

He was in the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment (AntiAircraft) A Battery, in the Philipines when WW2 broke out and Japan attacked. This National Guard unit formed in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Enlistees from New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, and possibly other areas,joined to form this Regiment.

I was told he was on Bataan Peninsula and when the surrender order came he got out to Corregidor Island and fought on. I don't know what means he used to get out to Corregidor Island, but I do know Manila Bay has sharks in it.

He worked at a copper mining and smelting plant from January to Sept 1945 by the Fujita-gumi Construction Company. From Corregidor to Taiwan, then to Kosaka. Sendai Command, also known as Sendai #8 Branch Camp. Yes, he was put on one of the Hell Ships. Unmarked freighters that were sometimes sunk or attacked by Allied subs and aircraft. Little food and water.

The info I found was he worked in a copper mine and smelter the last 7 months of the war at the Tokyo POW Camp Branch #2 (Kawasaki) Tokyo Bay Area 35-139.

After he was rescued, he went to Australia and then central Texas to recover. Mom had been working at a USO during WW2. That is where they met. They married and I was born a year later.

They divorced when I was 4 years old. The attached photo is of the two of us. I'm two years old in the photo. It was taken on our small farm, near Rogers, Texas, about 1950.

I'm trying to find info on his parents, annd his other two marriages, after he divorced mom. I think he married Marie L Lasalle from Montreal, Quebec, Canada in 1974 in Victoria, Texas. I was told by an uncle he also married someone between those two people and lived in Corpus Christi, Texas until he dicvored and later married Marie L Lasalle. I don't have any information on his second marriage.

I have his and mom's marriage certificate. It shows he was 26 in 1946. The marriage information I have of his marriage to Marie L Lasalle says he was 61 in 1974 and was born in about 1913.

It is possible I have information on two James Bailey Morris' mixed together.

When I did a search on ancestry.com for his full name, it showed thousands of matches. Most matches only showed middle initial, not middle name.

Help finding out more about him would be much appreciated. I know I have Native American ancestors from my mother's side of the family. It is possible he has ancestors who are Native Americans as well. The ancestry I know of, from my mother is, Comanche, Shoshone, Cherokee, Scot-Irish, Netherlands, Norman, and Swiss.

I didn't say from where, because I know very little about him. His name is at the end of this journal.

Here is what I know.

He was in the Phillipines in 1941. He was in the US Army. That he was probably on the Bataan Penninsula at one point. He then went out to Corregidor Island and fought on out there.

After Corregidor Island surrendered to the Axis, at some point he was shipped, along with other POWs, to the Japanese Home Islands. He was put to work as a slave laborer.

I don't know his unit. The above is all the information I have about his time before he met my mother.

After WW2 was over, he recupperated and wound up at Ft. Hood, Texas. I don't know where he convalessed, nor what locations he went to between the Japanese Home Islands and Fort Hood, Texas.

He went to a small town east of there to a small USO.

He met my mother, B. Huckabee, who was working there.

She had been there throughout her later years in high school. She told me she made and sold the burgers, fries, cheesburgers, and sodas to the military who came there. Handed out games like ping pong, checkers, and chess.

They married when he was in his mid-20s and she was 19. I was born a year later.

We lived in a small house trailer in Austin, Texas. It caught fire when I was 2 years old. Mom told me we both barely made it out alive. Dad had been at work.

A period of time later, we moved to just outside Rogers, Texas. Had a small farm. Chickens, hogs, a dog. Cold is what I remember. Earaches. From what mom told me many years later, my dad had flashbacks of the time he was in that POW camp. Mostly due the the other POWs who were dieing of dysentery, beriberi, etc. He couldn't forget that. In about 2006 I read a book that detailed what they went through. I am not angry at the Japanese people, but I don't have to like the camp guards and what they did.

My parents divorced. I don't know the details.

Mom and I tried to earn money. We gleaned snap bean and cotton fields. I got 50 cents a sack and she got either a dollar or 75 cents a sack. The lesser amount was due to the two of us being on the same row. Gleaning in this instance means walking down the rows after the machines harvested the crops. This would have been about 1950-51.

I thought for many years we had only done this for one day. Mom told my sisters in later years we had done this for more than one day, every year for 3 years. I have no memories of this time, except for the physical pain. I was not the only child in these fields. The physical pain has faded, but I find it hard to bend over these days. But it is likely me just getting older.

My mother and I moved in with her parents, Bertie and John Huckabee in Belton, Texas when I was about 5 years old. It was wonderful. Mom bought a television. I saw Howdee Doody, Woody Woodpecker, the first Captain Kangaroo show. Ernie Kovacs. What a wonderful imagination he had !

I went to school at age 6 years. Some of my primary and secondary years of education was fun. Some was horrible due to bullies. Most was boring.

But I graduated from High school at age 19. Six months later I went into the US Navy. The draft for Viet Name was on, I choose to volunteer.

My mother re-married, when I was 7 years old, to Richard C. Pierce. I consider him my dad. He is from near Lewiston, Maine. My mother had gone back to working at that same USO, and encountered my second dad there. She intoduced me to him by asking me to play ping pong with him.

I would like to find out more about my first dad, James Bailey Morris. Relatives told me years later he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas and re-married.

That is all I know.

I have a photo of James Morris and my mom, walking down the sidewalk in Temple, Texas in 1946. When I find it, I'll scan it and post it here.

Palatine Roots is a study of the emigration of nearly four hundred Germans to South Carolina in 1764 with data on about seventy-five surnames. Special emphasis is given to the origin of the Rampy and Rampey families in America.